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Reason 1: Because We Have Venues Beyond the Banquet Hall

By Miriam Datskovsky

Published Winter 2008

The Tobacco Warehouse, Dumbo

(Photo: Peter Doyle)

Deciding where to have a wedding in New York City makes for an excellent game of “eeny, meany, miney, moe.” It’s not just the abundance that makes venue-hunting so exciting, but also the variety: secret rooftop oases, industrial lofts, botanical gardens, historic mansions, art galleries, stately museums, buttoned-up private clubs, cavernous event spaces, chic restaurants, and hotels ranging from five-star candlelit plush to downtown dark and loungy. Did we mention that you can have an elegant reception at the Central Park Zoo? Or at the riverfront urban ruin that is the Tobacco Warehouse—vast, open to the sky, and this close to the Brooklyn Bridge? There is a space for every sensibility, from understated (dining outdoors, flanked by skyscrapers, at Studio 450), to throwback (imagine a swooping tango on a rotating dance floor at the Rainbow Room), to downright extravagant (hosting cocktail hour under the marble arches of the New York Public Library’s Astor Hall). The challenge here isn’t finding a venue; it’s narrowing it down to just one.